Lady Gaga brings a show that lives up to the hype

Until Friday's Electric Factory show, the hype surrounding Lady Gaga seemed too good to be true.

Lada Gaga's 2008 debut, The Fame, offered a mirthful mix of theatrical electronic disco and grand glam pop filled with snitty, pithy lyrics and coy vocals rich in cold soul.

While Gaga, born Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, had her hands in Fame's production, playing and songwriting, she's also a fashion maven with an eye toward wearing asymmetrical '80s tops, bodysuits instead of pants, and complementing her ensembles with an eyewear selection of disco-ball masks and TV-screen sunglasses.

But she pulled it all off in a live setting with a guitar playing DJ (Nicodemus), boy dancers, a solid A/V team, and her own moments alone at an upright Lucite piano (when she wasn't lockstep dancing while singing). And she sounded better than her album, making Gaga pop music's reigning queen at age 23.

The crowd of pants-less boys and girls in platinum bangs and teetering high heels agreed.

From the ping-pong electro "Paparazzi" to its sleeker cousin, "Just Dance," Gaga embraced the joy, pain and drama of Euro-disco at its sassiest. Gaga's voice wound through the robotic former and the latter's snaky melody with a low saucy croon that leapt easily into highs and pumped the cabaret-hop of The Fame with a coda of David Bowie's similarly named smash - while Dramatic dance tracks such as the old-school, hip-hop-infused "Beautiful, Dirty, Rich" and the spare techtronic "Money Honey" found loot as her principal turn on.

Gaga's best moments were her simplest, not her quietest, like when she sat before (and atop) her piano draped in an outfit of clear bubble-balloons and sang in an open-throat quaver - a la Liza Minelli and Annie Lennox - on "Poker Face" and the wilder trilled "Future Love." Divine.

While her opening act, the White Tie Affair, had faces like guys in the Tudors and played electro-power pop with spunk and too much screaming, Chester French was exceptional. The duo's pin-prick sharp, synth-funk brimmed with slipped-disc rhythms and swoony vocals courtesy of D.A. Wallach. Their hooks and nooks gave Gaga a run for her money. They were that good.